trickery Quotes

“Oh come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?” The brush continued to move. “Like it? Well I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch here and there—criticized the effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said: “Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”

“I may not be as stong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.”

“I tell myself that’s what you get when you put thirty-one toilets on the most popular girl’s front yard. People tend to treat you a little differently than before.”

“It was for one minute that I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like quills. Sir, if that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face?”

“There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.”

“They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked out his singing school, by stopping up the chimney; broke into the school-house at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and window stakes, and turned every thing topsy-turvy: so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held their meetings there.”

You cannot say ‘no’ to the people you love, not often. That’s the secret. And then when you do, it has to sound like a ‘yes’. Or you have to make them say ‘no.’ You have to take time and trouble.

“I made a lot of exits through side doors, down fire escapes or over rooftops. I abandoned more wardrobes in the course of five years than most men acquire in a lifetime. I was slipperier than a buttered escargot.”

“Howl was on the tossing, nearly sinking ship below. He was a tiny black figure now, leaning against the bucking mainmast. He let the Witch know she had missed by waving at her cheekily. The Witch saw him the instant he waved. Cloud, Witch, and all at once became a savagely swooping red bird, diving at the ship. The ship vanished. The mermaids sang a doleful scream. There was nothing but sulkily tossing water where the ship had been. But the diving bird was going too fast to stop. It plunged into the sea with a huge splash. Everyone on the quayside cheered.”

“It was too late. Exactly as he spoke, Polly’s hand went out to touch one of the rings. And immediately, without a flash or a noise or a warning of any sort, there was no Polly. Digory and his Uncle were alone in the room.”

“Gollum’s eyes glinted. ‘He doesn’t know what we minds, does he, precious?‘”

“‘Hey, my spaghetti’s moving!’ cried Mr. Twit, poking around in it with his fork. ‘It’s a new kind,’ Mrs. Twit said, taking a mouthful from her own plate which of course had no worms. ‘It’s called Squiggly Spaghetti. It’s delicious. Eat it up while it’s nice and hot.’

“‘What’s happened?’ screamed Mrs. Twit. They stood in the middle of the room, looking up. All the furniture, the big table, the chairs, the sofa, the lamps, the little side tables, the cabinet with bottles of beer in it, the ornaments, the electric heater, the carpet, everything was stuck upside down to the ceiling. The pictures were upside down on the walls. And the floor they were standing on was absolutely bare. What’s more, it had been painted white to look like the ceiling.”

“You can play a lot of tricks with a glass eye because you can take it out and pop it back in again any time you like. You can bet your life Mrs. Twit knew all the tricks.”

“To pay her back for the glass eye in his beer, Mr. Twit decided he would put a frog in Mrs. Twit’s bed. He caught a big one down by the pond and carried it back secretly in a box. That night when Mrs. Twit was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, Mr. Twit slipped the frog between her sheets. Then he got into his own bed and waited for the fun to begin.”

“Suddenly, as Mr. Twit tipped the last drop of beer down his throat, he caught sight of Mrs. Twit’s awful glass eye staring up at him from the bottom of the mug. It made him jump. ‘I told you I was watching you,’ cackled Mrs. Twit. ‘I’ve got eyes everywhere so you’d better be careful.‘”

“But it’s a trick, Tally. You’ve only seen pretty faces your whole life. Your parents, your teachers, everyone over sixteen. But you weren’t born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly.”

“I’m not going to trip him. I’m gonna lead him right where he’s dying to go. ”

“He is quiet and small, he is black From his ears to the tip of his tail; He can creep through the tiniest crack He can walk on the narrowest rail. He can pick any card from a pack, He is equally cunning with dice; He is always deceiving you into believing That he’s only hunting for mice. He can play any trick with a cork Or a spoon and a bit of fish-paste; If you look for a knife or a fork And you think it is merely misplaced - You have seen it one moment, and then it is gawn! But you’ll find it next week lying out on the lawn. And we all say: OH! Well I never! Was there ever A Cat so clever As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!”

“Memory is, of course, a trickster.”

“Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.”

“we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your place. If the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense; and here, by this, is your brother saved, your honor untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it? ”

“You can’t have anything, you can’t have anything at all. Because desire just cheats you. It’s like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it--but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you’ve got the inconsequential part, but the glitter that made you want it is gone--”

“Foxy Loxy led Chicken Licken, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, and Cocky Locky to his cave. He didn’t get to eat them though, because Chicken Licken was almost right. The sky wasn’t falling. The Table of Contents was. It fell and squashed everybody. The End.”

“Elizabeth walked right over the dragon and opened the door to the cave.”

“I just want to go in to get out of the snow. Keep your mind on your work. You just stay there, you two. I will go in the house and find something to do.”

“My greatest weakness has always been my desire for love. It is a yawning chasm within me, and the more that I reach for it, the more easily I am tricked.”

″‘Your grandmother has caught a cold, grand children, and it is dark and windy out here. Quickly open up, and let your Po Po come in,’ the cunning wolf said. Tao and Paotze could not wait. One unlatched the door and the other opened it. They shouted, ‘Po Po, Po Po, come in.‘”

″‘Good children,’ the wolf begged, ‘pluck some for me.’ ‘But Po Po, gingko is magic only when it is plucked directly from the tree. You must come and pluck it from the tree yourself.‘”

″‘Gingko is soft and tender, like the skin of a baby. One taste and you will live forever,’ Shang said, ‘and the nuts grow on the top of the tree just outside the door.‘”

“The old woman had only pretended to be so kind; she was in reality, a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children, and had only built the little house of bread in order to entice them there.”

“The nonfiction books he tried were mostly called things like “When I Was a Boy in Greece,” or “Happy Days on the Prairie”—things that made them sound like stories, only they weren’t. They made Mark furious. ‘It’s being made to learn things not on purpose. It’s unfair,’ he said. ‘It’s sly’”

″...oftentimes these ministers of darkness tell us truths in little things, to betray us into deeds of greatest consequence.”